Leitch

This, friends, is the new stadium for the New York Mets, still out in Flushing and expected to open in 2009. It is designed, like most stadiums are these days, as a throwback to the old-timey fields of the '50s, with smidgens of Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds mixed in with, you know, big skyboxes. The Mets understood that Shea Stadium was cavernous, huge and decrepit, and attempted to return to the roots of the baseball's glorious history.

You can tell this devotion to aesthetic pleasures by the name of the new stadium, announced yesterday: Citifield. Citifield. Absolutely nothing gnarlishly corporate about that, nope.

It could have been worse. That's the best I can say for CitiField, future home of your New York Mets, at this early date. I've been living with it for 24 hours — practicing it, imagining it, mulling it and wow, it gets less likable every time I say it.

CitiField. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to CitiField. The Mets return home tonight to open a three-game set with the Cubs at CitiField.

No, stay on the 7 and get off at the CitiField stop. I'll just meet you at CitiField, OK?

This is going to take some time.

We, we'd say so. The deal is worth $20 million annual for the Mets from Citibank. We hope it's worth it. At 20 million ... it probably is.